The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-01-14

with q friend from Geneva, the young
lawyer, Ludwig Schmidt friend, and
more than a friend. Bertha was in
the first blush and beauty ofgirlhood,
fair and pink, with soft, blue German
eyes, aid curls too rich to be fiaxen.
She was letting Ludwig cut one little
curl, with her pretty head bent lowfor
the robbery. The shadow of death
doomed I'VE her home again while she
was still wearing a mourning gown for
her boy brother; so, though they were
lovers, even to the sweet folly of giving
q love-lock, they could not be very
light-hearted tonight.
And why not have the broken mir
ror taken away?" the young lawyer of
Leipsic asked. There is no room for
superstition in the legal and logical
mind.
cit is ill-luck for whoever touches
1t" said Bertha, with blush; but she
could not get him to believe such fool
ishness. He put the love lock in the
innermost recess of his pocketbook.
and then, with his own hands, gathered
the ruins of the mirror on to a table
and rang for a servant to take them
away out OF everybody's sight.
"You picked them up, sir?" said the
servant nervously.
II did" said Ludwig, with q laugh.
"There's no fear of ill-luck for you, my
good fellow, you are SO cautious"
at would have been wise, sir, to
have left it as it fell until after the
change Of the moon"
Ludwig gave a growl of contempt.
"My good man, | would not be such
g. moonstruck lunatic. Take the pieces
away"
Bertha admired him more than
ever, as every girl admires a brave
man. 1t seemed such a daringdeed to
be the one to pick up that mirror; she
mistook HE common sense for brav-
cry.
"Your grandfather is dying of sheer
fright" the young man went on,
stepping out on the terrace, and lead
ing the girl with him. 1.-THE omen will
come true if the fear of it kills him."
But, dear Ludwig" said the girl,
leaning on the balustade, and feeling
helplessly ignorant as she looked up
at her wise lover, and loved him the
more for a mans superior wisdom,
1--WE should all not like to believe in
the omen; but what couldhave knock
ed the mirror DOWN"
1t was indeed puzzling. The nails
that had held that mirror were
as long as a mans hand. They had
been buried in the wall like shafts OF
iron, and out of the wall they had
dragged themselves, after being for
fifty years safe and firm. Bertha her.
self had been in the drawing room
singing Gounod's "Serenade," with
her fiance leaning against the piano
watching the light from the candles
making q halo about herfair hair, and
the old baron was doing in his chair
with the dog at his feet, when all at
once, with no hand near it, the great
mirror had dragged it's nails out of
the opposite wall and crashed down
upon the floor. The dog had howled
and barked, the servants had rushed
in, and in the midst of the confusion
the old mans voice had said with a.
tremble:
"My hour has comet"
His strength had failed; he had been
confined to his room; he was dying.
When Ludwig aud Bertha walked
along the terrace rhey hushed their
steps near those open windows farther
on than the old drawing-room.
"He is awake again." said Ludwig,
looking into the curtained gloom. go
to him, Bertha, if you like, and can
have asmokei in the garden. You might
ask him about the will"
"But / don't want him to die, Lud-
wig"
my poor little Bertha, what strange
things they have taught you! He
won't die q moment sooner because
he makes a will. 1t is the right thing
to do"
Whatever Ludwig said was right
always to the lonely, half. taught girl;
so as she sat beside the death-bed that
evening she tenderly and gently coax
ed the old man to have his last wishes
written down. Ludwig was called IN
from the garden, where his cigar had
been glimmering under the lindens, and
they sent for the village notary, and
the butler was the witness.
1t was we'll the will was made that
night. The old baron was dead
before morning.
Then how the idlers at the Golden
Dragon" talked, and how all the vii
lage whispered and shudderedl Well,
a few months after Ludwig Schmidt
owned the castle and Bertha was his
wife, and it was to be hoped nothing
more would jump down from the walls
to give mortals a warning.
III.
The gloomy Fritz Hartmann was
more gloomy than ever Martha
swept the cottage and played with the